Temptation
by prettypilipala
Summary: Written for a challenge. Lyra finds herself being tempted again, fifteen years on. Oneshot.


**Disclaimer: **everything belongs to the ever amazing Philip Pullman. Geez I wish I could write like him . 

Written for the Poisoned Apple challenge on FictionNET.

_Write a story in which temptation leads to someone's downfall – be it literal or metaphorical._

Hopefully, this fits the criteria. Enjoy!

**---**

**Fifteen years ago**

"On Midsummer's Day," she said. "At midday. As long as I live."

Clumsy goodbyes and kisses that lasted forever, and then he was wrenched from her by a fate too cruel for even her silver tongue to describe. Her eyes were glued to the window between the worlds, to the face of the only person she would ever be able to love. Pan kept close to her, his warmth comforting, and once the window was closed she clung to him and they cried, for the pain of losing Will was worse than when they had been wrenched apart in the world of the dead.

"Oh Pan, dear Pan," Lyra wailed as she sank to her knees, not needing to say any more than that. Their heartache was shared, for they knew they would never see love again, never feel it, because Will was the only one who had understood them, the only one who would ever be able to control Lyra's temper and her fluid lies. And now he was gone, to build the republic of Heaven in another world to her.

She threw herself into studying the alethiometer because if she didn't, she would have gone insane.

**Fifteen years later**

It was Midsummer's Day, and Lyra Belaqua-Silvertongue made her way through the streets of Oxford to the Botanic Gardens. Pan slunk sinuously through the empty paths, sleek and beautiful as ever. She was right; he had never changed since Will's hands had touched him. She had, though; she had grown taller, with a figure like her mother's. But her hair was the same tawny mane it always had been, just a little more subdued, and her eyes were as sharp as ever.

And, as always, at her belt was a velvet pouch, and inside the alethiometer. Every year she tried to find out how Will was doing, and every year the alethiometer refused to answer. _Keep building_, it would say, and she would sigh and watch the clouds, imagining Will watching the same ones.

The bench was still there. Hopefully it was in Will's Oxford, too. Lyra checked the time – five minutes to midday – and then sat down, holding the alethiometer in her lap. Pan had wandered off somewhere, she could feel him in the back of her mind. He usually tried to creep up on her, she thought with a small smile, and never succeeded.

Midday struck, and Lyra turned to stare at the empty seat next to her. She could picture how Will looked now, and sadness crept into her eyes. This was the only day she could let the sadness out, the only day that she could mourn for the love that she had lost. Iorek Byrnison knew, because she kept in touch with him, and Serafina Pekkala knew because she was a witch; but no one else could ever know.

"Hello Will," she whispered softly, tears in her eyes. "I never knew this would be so hard." But she was nothing if not a fighter, and the tears were soon gone as she turned to the alethiometer. Her hands turned the wheels carefully, with practiced ease rather than the unconscious grace she had once had.

_How is Will now?_ she asked it silently, her eyes studying the movements of the needle carefully. Pan dropped down from a tree to land on the bench, watching the alethiometer.

Lyra noted which symbols were pointed to, and then turned to the book that she carried around inside her bag to check their meanings. "I felt you coming a mile off," she said to Pan with a grin. He fluffed himself up in mock indignance.

"You're just saying that," he huffed, curling up next to her. "What's it say?"

"I… don't know." Lyra was confused, because it hadn't told her what it usually did. The ant, which meant work, hadn't been pointed to. Maybe she wasn't meant to keep building any more… The apple had been pointed to, and the serpent, and then it got confusing. She read their meanings, and then asked the alethiometer again.

_How is Will now?_

This time the meaning came loud and clear, and she almost dropped it.

_Do not be tempted again._

Lyra put the alethiometer back in its pouch and tilted her head back to watch the clouds. She didn't understand what it meant… she was in her late twenties. She was too old to be tempted again, too old to save the world. Besides, this time she didn't have Will to help her, or the help of Lee Scoresby or even Iorek Byrnison and the Gyptians; only the promise of being with Will in the land of the dead, in the republic of heaven that they would build between them.

---

Once there was a man, and his name was Enoch; and then he became an angel, and his name was Metatron. And from deep within the closed abyss he waited for his chance to get revenge on those who had cost him his kingdom, holding onto life as best he could.

It was many years before he saw his chance, and then spread his tattered wings as far as they would go, and blew something from his hands to the other dimensions.

It was a serpent.

---

Late at night, and Lyra was curled up next to Pan in her bed at Jordan College, musing on what the alethiometer had meant.

"We mustn't let anything happen, Pan," she said firmly, stroking Pantalaimon. "We promised Will. We both have to live our lives fully, so that when we die we'll have stories to tell the harpies."

"We promised," agreed Pan sleepily. "Lyra, so long as we do what's right, we'll be okay. We have each other to make sure things don't go wrong."

"You're right," Lyra agreed with a yawn, closing her eyes. "We just have to keep building." She fell asleep, and her daemon did soon after.

And through the night air the serpent came, invisible, and it sank its venom into Lyra's neck, filling her mind with its poison. Her dreams were of the past, of the subtle knife and the windows through the Cittàgazze, of Spectres and harpies and Dust, and the city in the stars…

Lyra awoke with a jolt, startling Pan so much that he leapt onto the floor and hissed. She turned to him, eyes wild.

"Pan," she breathed. "Pan, there's a way, there's always a way. I dreamt it, and if it's true, we can go and see Will again! Oh Pan, we can go and see him again!"

---

"No."

Pantalaimon stared firmly at Lyra. "No, Lyra. We can't."

It was a week later, and Lyra had spent that week in the libraries of Jordan College, searching for the solution that she knew was there. Pan had refused to come near her while she was in there, and sat on the roof sulking.

"We can't cut a window through, Pan," Lyra said, "but there is another way. The angels did it. The citadel did it. And there's a way for us to do it, too! It wouldn't make any Spectres, but we could go through and see Will and Kirjava whenever we wanted to, and we wouldn't be ill but-"

"Lyra, no!" Pan leapt onto the book in front of her, his eyes flashing. "We _promised_, Lyra! We have to do this here, in our world, even if it means doing it alone. We can't take any chances!" He stared at her until she looked away mutinously.

"I want to see him again," she said stubbornly.

"Lyra," Pan said warningly, and Lyra sighed.

"Alright," she muttered in defeat, standing up and leaving the library. Pan shook his head before he followed her out. It was too dangerous to meddle in these matters, because it might cause more Spectres and more wars and harm the Dust.

Lyra's eyes flashed with the stubbornness that seemed to have left her. Once she got an idea into her head, there was no stopping her, and she knew that to see Will once more, to hold him and kiss him would be to create a republic of heaven, right there and then, just for the two of them.

She could ask the alethiometer, but it would take too long. There was a glint in Lyra's eye. Lord Asriel had bridged the worlds using the energy of a severed child. The angels used methods unknown to most humans. But the easiest way was to use the knife, and even though it was broken, it had once been; and once something had existed once, it would be easy to make again.

She just had to persuade Pan, that was all.

---

The serpent unwound, slithered through the worlds, and arrived at the metaphorical Tree of Knowledge, and Metatron smiled, letting go of his grasp on life. Now he knew that Eve would fall again, because she was now an adult, and she could be reached in ways a child could not.

Somewhere, deep within the layers of worlds, the subtle knife was born again. And in Lyra's Oxford, the serpent wrapped its false dreams around Lyra's consciousness, and whispered to her as she slept.

_The time is coming, Lyra. You can see Will again soon._

---

It was as if a demon had possessed her. Suddenly the false energy that had kept her going was replaced with a renewed vigour, and Lyra threw herself into everything she did whole-heartedly. Pantalaimon was pleased, because she hadn't mentioned travelling between the worlds since they had argued. Instead she applied herself to her studies, and worked hard towards her doctorate.

"I can teach others to read the alethiometer," she'd said earnestly to Dame Hannah, "and we can make sure that they will never be lost to history." Dame Hannah was pleased, for she was old and frail now, and Lyra would keep the alethiometer alive.

Christmas came, and went; the new year started with a blizzard, and Lyra and Pan watched the swirling flakes from the comfort of their room. Pan had almost forgotten about Lyra's idea, and was curled up peaceably in her lap. Lyra's eyes gazed through the snow, though; guided by the serpent to a different world altogether. She could see Will again this year, she would go to the Botanic Gardens on Midsummer's Day and when she sat on the bench she would be able to turn around and throw herself into Will's arms, and never let him go.

Pan would thank her, she reasoned, stroking his reddish-gold fur gently. He missed Kirjava as much as she missed Will. Once they were together, then everything would be okay. The alethiometer kept telling her not to be tempted, but she shrugged it off. She could be tempted in two ways – tempted to see him again, to live her life happily; or tempted to stay in Jordan College, and wait until she was dead to see him. It all depended on the interpretation.

"Do you think they're watching the snow?" Pan asked from her lap. Lyra nodded.

"I think so," she smiled. "And I think they're thinking of us, too." Pan gave a content sigh, and settled back down.

"We'll never find anyone else, will we?" he asked after a while. Lyra shook her head. "No. Never anyone else, Pan. Only him, and Kirjava." And this year, at Midsummer, she would see him again.

**Now**

It was a serpent that guided her feet through the Botanic Gardens, even though Pan darted ahead of her as usual. There was a spring in her step and a smile on her face, despite it being five minutes to midday on Midsummer's Day, and she'd left the alethiometer behind.

"Are you okay?" Pan asked, pausing to look back at her. She nodded, her eyes sparkling.

"We can be close to him again," she answered. Pan made his way towards her, draping himself over her shoulders in an attempt to comfort her.

"As close as we can ever be to them," he whispered in her ear with a sigh. Lyra raised her hand to his head, and made her way over to their bench. The serpent moved ahead, through to the next world, to complete Metatron's revenge.

As she sat down she saw something, out of the corner of her eye.

"What was that?" she asked Pan. He slipped to the floor, staring in shock at the bench.

"Lyra, it's-" he started, but she had tilted her head and caught it; the faintest flicker of movement in another world, and then another; a stranger stared at her, his two littlest fingers missing in the badge of the knife ownership, and beyond him-

"-a window," Pan finished. He sat back on her shoulder, and then gave a loud cry, for he had seen past the stranger with the knife to a familiar face staring back, older but still as strong as he had always been, and then this was it.

_Do I go to him?_ Lyra asked herself, staring into Will's eyes in shock. _Or do I stay?_

"Lyra, the Spectres," Pan warned in a low voice. "The knife! Will broke it; how come the angels didn't notice it had been made again?"

"Will," she breathed. From the worlds between them, she heard his voice again. "Lyra."

"Close it," Pan instructed, though she could hear the heartache in his voice. From Will's side, Kirjava gave a loud cry. "You _have_ to close it, Lyra! The world can only sustain one, remember? The dead people?"

"But…" Ignoring the confusion of the new knife-bearer, Lyra stepped out of her Oxford, and Will stepped out of his. They watched each other across the Ci'gazze, as if they were dreaming.

And then it was real, and Lyra gave a cry of _"Will!"_ and ran forward, but he was faster and reached her first, his arms were around her and he squeezed her tightly, so tightly she thought her ribs were going to break, and he was whispering in her ear. "Oh Lyra, my Lyra!"

"Will!" she whispered again, tears in her eyes. "We tried, Will, Pan and me, we tried to keep going, but we just couldn't build heaven without you!"

"I'm here now, Lyra, we can build it here, we can build it together," he whispered soothingly. The knife-bearer, sensing that he shouldn't be witnessing this reunion, cut a window through to another world and disappeared.

"Oh Will," Lyra said again, and then she started to cry, tightening her grip on Will in case she woke up and it was all a dream. And then Pan distangled himself from Kirjava and nipped her sharply on the ankle and she drew back, sobbing. "We shouldn't be here, Will, we should be closing the windows-"

"We should," Will agreed, resting his forehead against hers. "Oh Lyra, just five minutes… just to be with you again."

"Will," Kirjava said sharply, at the same time that Pan said, "Lyra. The Spectres could come soon."

"The angels got rid of all the Spectres," Lyra said confidently, but her confidence was waning now that she realised what had happened. The knife had been made again. More windows, more cutting into the dust-

-more Spectres.

"They'll stop him, now that they know what the knife does," Will said soothingly. "But…"

"We should go back through and close the windows," Lyra finished sadly. "I know." But she couldn't bring herself to let go of Will; it had been sixteen years since she'd last seen him, sixteen long and painful years, surely she was entitled to just five minutes…

"We promised to stay on the bench for one hour," she whispered hopefully after a minute of silence. "Standing here… the bench is on either side of us… Will, we could stay here for the hour."

Pantalaimon and Kirjava both looked up at Will, and he looked down at Lyra and nodded. That was the signal the daemons had needed; within seconds they had run off to play together, to catch up, to _exist_ the same way Lyra wanted to exist with Will.

An hour. It couldn't hurt. Will looked into Lyra's eyes and smiled, a passionate smile that filled her stomach with butterflies and weakened her knees. He pulled her down to the floor, and she realised that she really, really wanted to go to China with him again.

---

The clock struck one.

In Lyra's Oxford, the mighty clock of Jordan College boomed the passing of the hour, disturbing the unusual silence of the city.

In Will's Oxford traffic horns blared as the dinner hour traffic hit its peak.

These sounds drifted through to the Cittàgazze, but they were only heard by the Spectres that were clustered around the now lifeless bodies of Will and Lyra, and by the angels that had just arrived to fight them and to find the knife-bearer. Will had been right; the angels did stop him.

But not in time, Xaphania noticed sadly. Will and Lyra's eyes were open, glassy, staring at each other, and their hands were still entwined. Another angel approached.

"What shall we do with these?" he asked. Xaphania looked down, and gave a sad smile.

"Bury them here," she said, "with the remnants of the knife." She watched as her orders were fulfilled, and as Lyra and Will were buried deep within the ground, finally together forever.

Xaphania looked up to the sun of the Ci'gazze, and sighed. Free will was always a problem, Lord Asriel had proven that; and now, Lyra and Will, Adam and Eve, were lost once more.

"Who will rebuild our Heaven now?" she asked the sky, but of course it had no answer. And in the sky, the particles of Lyra and Will, attached as they'd once sworn they would always be, danced amongst the Dust.

---

_Finit! It's my first ever His Dark Materials fanfiction - I hope it worked!_


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